(upbeat music) - Well, hello and thanks for joining us for another edition of Mid-American Gardener, I'm your host Tinisha Spain and of course this is our stay at home edition of Mid-American Gardener, where you still get to have access to our experts, ask them your questions and of course they will bring their show and tell.

So let's jump in and have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their specialty, ladies first, so Kay we'll start with you.

- Okay, I'm a Champaign County Master Gardener, and my areas are herbs and vegetables and lots of different flowers and plants.

- Okay, wonderful, Richard.

- Hello everyone, Richard Hentschel I'm a horticulture educator and I'm located up in Northern Illinois and my areas of specialty if you're gonna call them that are going to be a woody ornamentals, turf areas of that nature.

- Wonderful.

- All right and John.

- I'm John Bobster, and I work from Marion County Master Gardener.

And specialties, I guess, perineal fosters some vegetables, trees shrubs.

- Okay, all right, Richard, I've always wanted to ask and I may have already asked this in another show are you five B as well are you using five B or is different up north?

- No, I'm five B.

The very part of the very tip top part of the Galena Territories up in North West Illinois would be a zone colder.

And if you look at any of the zone maps, that it's very clearly that little finger just sticks right down and they get nailed before we do.

- Gotcha, okay all right, thank you.

Okay, so we'll start with show and tells that we always do.

And Kay, what did you bring today?

- Well, I have this, it's a pepper, it's a sweet pepper and it's called Nepalese Bell.

And you can see it's kind of bell shaped.

That's how it hangs on the plant.

It is not hot.

It's a sweet pepper and I love it.

I haven't grown it for many years.

And I kind of forgot about it, but it's got a great flavor and it's very sweet.

And the seed cavity is here in this little protrusion at the bottom of the pepper.

So they're thin walled, but they've really got a lot of really good flavor and it's kind of a fun thing growing.

And they were just absolutely plants were huge and absolutely loaded with peppers this year.

- It's really beautiful when you turn it upside down, it looks almost like a waxy sort of row.

- Very waxy.

- Very brilliant.

- Did you say its a hot?

- No, it's not hot, it's some sweet pepper.

- Okay, gotcha.

- Gotcha.

So how exactly does that when in relation to like a green pepper or a yellow, does it have the same growing time or do you harvest it later in the summer or?

- Yeah, it was about the same as my other peppers it can actually ripen a little later.

- And what are your favorite recipes for that kind of pepper?

- I just eat it raw and put them in anything.

I mean, you just use like you would any other sweet pepper.

- Yeah.

- Whatever you like.

But I have been eating raw.

- Well, it was very pretty, thanks so much for sharing.

Alright, Richard, do you have a show and tell sort of advice that you wanted to share today?

- Nothing to really show, just to tell or say that, this long for attracted drier fall and warmer fall, that we've had have got a lot of folks maybe thinking it's still time that they could be putting in a lawn or overseeding or receding, and really the window for Northern Illinois, at least went away about the first week or so in September.

So we're well past any predictable success if we were trying to sow any seeds out at this point, maybe the far parts of Southern Illinois still have enough weeks left before there cold weather gets to them that they might be successful, but it takes takes 10 to 14 days to get a grass seed to germinate if it's blue grasses, and you look at the date, it's just not gonna be possible that that grass is gonna be up and old enough, or even having the need to be mowed before the really cold weather gets here.

So rather than do all that and then find out the next spring was all frozen and your efforts were for nothing.

I'd hang on until next spring at this point.

- Okay, and when you say in the spring, what's a good window?

Are we talking after the last third frost or sometime early in the spring, when's an ideal time for that grass seed?

- Well, of course the grass seeds sowing wave will start in Southern Illinois because there's gonna warm up first and then move on up North into the state.

But most of the time the soils need to be in that 55 degree range.

So about the time you are witnessing farmers out and about planting corn, which is a monocot so is our grasses are monocots, that's about the right timeframe to begin.

- Okay, so keep an eye on the farmers.

- You bet you.

- Okay, thank you.

All right, and John, I know you've got several show and tell items.

So what would you like to share?

- The first one I brought today was a succulent.

And as you can see it's getting pretty leggy.

And the nice thing with these is don't despair, all you have to do is turn one of the, on some of the succulent, you just turn the leaf off and lay it on the ground, and within two weeks, you're probably gonna have a whole new plant, and then you can discard these.

And you don't have to discard these, what you can do is cut them off and I cut off one of the little ones, and all you have to do then is plant that right up to the bottom leaf and all these little nodes where the leaves were attached are gonna turn into roots.

And then you again have a whole new plant that isn't so leggy.

And it's, I usually use a sand bed.

I have a little, like you get styrofoam containers, they make wonderful 'cause you can poke a hole through them and they drain and just fill it with sand and lay those leaves down there.

And within two weeks you can see the roots going down and then tiny little leaves.

And then you can transfer those into your pot and just be ready for next year.

And rather than leggy little things, you've got beautiful little new plants.

- Okay, so I have a question.

So where you cut at that stem there where you're holding it, that is not going to grow root right?

That's gonna die off?

- This part right here is going through along the stem is going to root.

- That will root, okay.

I thought you were saying that the leaves would take root.

- No, but you plant this, you can do both.

You can do the leaves and then you can take this and you're gonna have a nice star already, rather than starting out with really tiny plant.

You're gonna already end up with something that is already fairly big.

So just cut it off, and what they usually do is to cut it off and let it lay there for two days, one two days.

And you can tell when it's ready, by the end of this stem, it's gonna what they call callus off it's gonna dry up it's the plant's response to protecting itself.

And then after it callus off, then I just put it in the sand like that, right up to like that.

And it'll within seven to 10, 14 days, you'll have a whole new root of plant.

- Wow very cool.

Now does that since it's a succulent, does it need any type of, a heated pad in the bottom to make it grow a little faster or?

- Not really, we've as you know, I'm substitute teaching or volunteer teaching guess would be more extraordinary .

And right now we have close to 3000, maybe 4,000 of these little guys growing.

- Wow.

- And they've already doubled in.

They've already rooted and some of them have doubled in size just since the students are gone, but I'm expecting them back tomorrow.

So, well, they'll be surprised at how fast these have, the 10 days that they've been off, things have really changed.

- Wow.

We'll, you'll have to take some pictures so we can watch the progress of those.

- I will.

- Okay, all right.

Kay, we're going back around to you.

And this is where we've got a question.

Carl writes in, "Hi, can I plant sha... Is it shallots?

I'm I pronouncing it correctly?

- Yes, as a matter of fact, that's an ideal time and it's much the same as garlic.

The difference would be that you can spring plant shallots for fall like crops, and then you can plant them in the fall for a spring crop.

Whereas with garlic, you usually harvest it in July and then plant it in October and then that'll be your next year's crop.

So, but yes, it's very works very well.

You wanna plant them about two inches deep and about four inches apart in good soil.

- If you plant them now, you're going to get much bigger shallots the following year.

You can do it in spring, but you're gonna get, mine almost double in size if I plant them in the fall compared to if I plant them in the spring.

- All right, thank you.

All right, Richard, we're going to you question 921.

This is about a maple tree from Jerry.

He says, "Our healthy, mature red maple tree developed many dead branches last year and more this year.

I fertilized both years but with no apparent result, is there any hope for this tree?

Never missed the show and Tinisha is doing great."

Thank you, I appreciate that.

So, all right, your thoughts on them, on the maple.

- [Richard] Okay.

I'm basing this off of the picture or two that was sent in along with the question.

And we had the part that would have been great to see would be how that trunk is going into the soil.

The picture kind of just truncates it off.

And I can't quite tell, but if I'm gonna do somewhat of a guest here and suggest it is probably at this point in time in its age had not developed the trust roots it needed and given the age, and I'm gonna guess 20 years plus, you may have some by now, some girdling roots involved, but certainly without the proper crossroads, the root system isn't just able to function as it should.

Those roots are maybe girling other good roots in the action of circling around in the soil.

And that's one possibility the other is, and we hope this isn't the case, but if there is one of the wilt diseases in the soil, and I'm not suggesting there is, and you have good have to confirm that through lab, that these wilt diseases literally clog up the veins and arteries, the vascular bundles in the tree and the tree root system has energy, the trunk has energy, but it's not making it all the way up to the foliage because of the vascular disease.

And then you're going to get decline of the picture I'm looking at.

There's an awful lot of that canopy that seems to be impacted.

I think one of the tail end was, is there any hope for this tree?

Fingers crossed, but it's, I'm gonna guess here for you that next year, it may not even some of those impacted branches may not even leaf out at all.

And what is gonna leaf out may fail sooner into the season and later.

And so now down the road, enjoy it for what it is, but eventually the tree will continue to decline to the point where it's, you're gonna warm yourself by the earth with it later on.

- Gotcha.

So prepare for that, right?

- Yes, that's right.

- All right, thank you very much.

We are back around to you for another show and tell item.

- Okay, I brought another plant in, and this is I'm propagating at this time.

This is a strawberry begonia.

And the way you propagate that is kind of like, I guess one of the reasons they call it a strawberry is because it sends out these little chutes.

If I can get it on there.

- Yeah, that's perfect.

- And all you have to do is just lift that touch soil also, and it's going to root and then once it has established roots, then you just cut this stem this little feeder root or feeder stamp off, and you've got a whole new plant.

This is kind of like some of your house plants in that they do not like water on the leaves.

Water like.

There's a number of things that will rot pretty easily.

And this is one of those.

So water the ground only, or water from the bottom, but don't just sprinkle on top because you'll find that, it does not like that.

And you'll end up with some leaf damage and maybe, and don't overwater.

These do not like to be over-watered either.

So you can see.

- Are you bringing those in to start it, you know new starts for next year, next planting?

- These are going to the greenhouse and by next year, they'll continue to put out these little roots all year.

And by the end of a spring, you can see here's one of them that has already rooted in that soil.

So you can see it.

I missed that when the stem must have, or the plant rested on the soil long enough.

So I could dig this up and put it and I re-pot it, and end up with, I'll end up with probably I'd say a dozen plants out of this one by spring.

- Wow, that's crazy.

- They are just, my godmother used to have these and this that's why I keep them because I remember her.

She loved her strawberry, but don't use them.

- Yep, thank you John.

You know, we do get those sentimental attachments.

My mom is the same way with her peonies because they were my grandmother's and now she will always have peonies in her garden.

We've all got that sort of emotional attachment.

Kay, we are back around to you 981.

This is from Z Ray so we're gonna hope I didn't mispronounce your name.

"Your advice is needed on trimming perennial hibiscus before winter.

Thanks a lot, Z in Champaign."

So Kay what do you recommend here?

- Well, it's kind of depends on whether it's a true perennial hibiscus or whether it's a Rose of Sharon, which often look like that hibiscus I don't know if they had a picture.

I didn't see one.

If it's a true hibiscus, which is Hibiscus syriacus, then the stems will actually die off and they will get hallow and dry and they'll pull right out of the ground.

So there's no trimming back too.

And then in the spring the new chutes will come up through the ground and they'll re-bloom again.

And I actually have one of those.

The Rosa Sharon is more of bush like a woody bush, but the flowers look very similar to the hardy hibiscus and some people do call them hardy hibiscus.

So those could be trimmed back like you would any bush.

So I'm not sure which one they have.

Whether it's the true hardy hibiscus, or the Rosa Sharon.

- All right, anybody else have anything they wanna add to that?

- Yeah, just don't give up on those in the spring because they are one of a lot.

They're kind of like, (mumbles).

They're very late in showing growth in the spring.

So don't be digging them up or thinking that they're dead because they will come up late.

But they are very hardy here.

- Yeah mine's absolutely huge.

And it blooms this summer, and it was loaded with blossoms for the whole summer.

- Mine started to re-bloom just a couple of weeks ago again.

- Yeah.

- My bedded hybris it bloomed last week.

I have no idea why, but I thought you put you're just this isn't gonna end well.

- There are actually varieties of hybris that are re-blooming.

I have one, and then I had for years, it never re-bloomed, but this year I had a couple of blooms on light just recently.

Kind of depends on what variety of its is.

Yeah, it's been a weird year.

- It has, hasn't?

It's been a very weird year.

Okay, we're going 982 to Richard.

This is from Charles.

He says, "I have a weed that is spreading like crazy.

I've attached two not very good photos," so at least he admitted that they're not great.

"Showing the leaves and the pink flowers.

I believe it is a form of smart weed or knotweed.

I'm trying to manually eradicate it to no avail, further steps to take would depends on whether it is an annual or a perineal.

Can you enlighten me on what this is?"

So let's see if we can figure out what we've got here.

I think we have a couple pictures.

- [Richard] It was probably the other picture, but very clearly this it's covered in pink buds, which will all become flowers and very quickly seeds.

Yes this is a smart weed or one of the smart weeds.

Yes this is an annual, the struggle gardeners have with this is because it's so prolific in its flowering and then seed set.

You need to really get after it is absolutely as soon as you see it, otherwise you've just added to the seed bank for next year.

And it can become quite a thicket of smart weed very quickly.

It is the kind of season we had that just has promoted smart weed.

I think throughout all of Illinois, certainly it's up here just in all its glory, as you see in the image there.

And its likes a unique situation, maybe because we've watered more of this year, you see it underneath bird feeders that you continually fill up with water and have that waste soil all the time.

It really likes the high moisture soils and that's it's kind of it's name to fame that's where you're normally gonna find it in high moisture areas, but it isn't any a stranger to growing in dry ground either.

So it's just one of those great generalist kind of weeds that we get, but it is an annual and without saying much more, it may indeed even respond to a pre-emergent type product.

Just have to be clear that both the weed in question, in this case smart weed and the crop you wanna treat are on the label.

And so you might get, find some control with a pre-emergent and that will at keep it at bay until sometime later in the season.

- All right, thank you very much.

- All right, John, we are back around to you.

This is from Nikolaus and this is about peach trees.

He writes, "I live in Fithian and I have a red heaven as well as a hardy Bailey peach tree.

They're about 10 years old.

I prune them every fall and had a great crop until two years ago, this is the third year," he says that they did not bloom and would appreciate any help that you could provide there.

So, great hall on these, up until the last couple of years what do you think?

- Yeah, couple of things.

We've had some very late frost, freezes actually in this area.

And it might be that his blossoms are just freezing off.

The other thing, that kind of concerns it could, depending on how much he is actually pruning off, he could be actually pruning off if he's just doing the edges and really shaping it throughout the whole tree, he could be pruning pruning off the flower buds for the following year.

So I would suggest that he not prune off this fall and wait till after they possibly bloom in spring and see if that helps the two varieties he has are mid to early bloomers, and he may want to try a late bloomer.

And I do not, I forgot to go get a late blooming variety for this area, that might, if we continue to have these warm Springs and all of a sudden we have that one or two really cold day freezes and which actually freezes off the small fruit or the blossoms.

The other thing that I have done with some of my peaches, if I see that I am going to have that they are blooming and that I'm going to have a very cold night, I will take some of my Christmas tree lights and string them toward the bottom branches of the tree and these are the old varieties, like the C9s, the ones that get really hot and just string them around, my neighbors think I'm crazy when they see me, I've decorated, I did it for my apricots trees especially because those are so still very sensitive, but some of my peach trees also, I will put that and just the warmth from that, well kind of go up the tree and just enough if it isn't, unless it's a really, really hard frost or freeze will protect some of those blossoms.

So it's a couple of ideas.

- I wanna get in there John, we have a couple minutes left question 931, similar to this one.

This person, Christine Cox writes there, her gooseberry was very bushy, but no berries at all this year.

I wonder if it too got affected by that late frost that we have.

- I'm thinking it was, 'cause I have three different gooseberry trees and my picks while which is up towards the top where the ground is a little bit warmer, did wonderful, but too down lower where it is normally cooler, did not have any blossoms on this year either.

And actually one of them I actually lost.

So I think it probably was budding out and the frost got it, because then they can dehydrate themselves just kind of like roses, you know how they say not to improve nos because then new growth will just completely destroyed the plant.

So one of those and one of them that does do very well, the varieties is called pix well, P I X, W E L L. And it's a wonderful gooseberry and very prolific.

- Okay, all right.

Kay, I know you grow a lot of herbs.

What do you do to close down your beds for fall?

Or do you close them down and or do you let them receive, what do you do when your herb garden?

- I harvest and dry and then just let them go.

I usually dig up at least one or two rosemary plants about this time of year and get them in the house and tender perennials that I choose I'll dig up, but mostly just harvesting.

- John, any winterization tips from you, we've got about one minute left.

- One of the things I've done is go out to my herb garden and some of the tender perennials, lemon verbena, roseberry, some of those things I actually dig up and I will bring in.

Some of them, I will go dormant, I take this to the basement, I let them go like the lemon verbena that looks completely dead, loses all its leaves, but I bring it up in the spring and re-plant it.

And within a week I've got leaves coming.

And so some of those, the perennial, the perennial herbs, I dig up and try to save some of them have gone to the greenhouse.

I know I've got a couple of beautiful, beautiful rosemarys that are, are just doing great.

- Okay, well, thank you guys so much for your time and talents and your show and tells really appreciate it.

Thanks you for joining us and for keeping up with us during this crazy year that we've had, and we will see you next time.

Good night.

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